Human Lives Human Rights: Swedish PM Kristersson, visited Turkey and pledged to work toward countering “terrorism” threats to Turkey.
According to Anadolu news agency, Sweden extradited a convicted member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to Turkey.
This action took place simultaneously with Ankara’s pressure on Stockholm, because Turkey wanted to hand over those classified as terrorists in Ankara’s point of view in exchange for accepting Sweden’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
This action of the Swedish government showed that even Stockholm, like other western governments, has a dual approach to human rights.
The Swedish government uses the concept of human rights in many cases where its interests require it, and in cases where it is not necessary, it ignores and violates this concept.
It should be noted that Sweden is one of the leading countries in the defense of human rights and is active in creating mechanisms for its realization, especially human rights conventions, but Sweden’s positions on human rights violations in different countries are not the same.
The general environment of Sweden’s relations with each country determines the limits and intensity of Sweden’s human rights positions towards that country and causes selective encounters and double standards in the human rights diplomacy of this country.
In the face of human rights violations in countries like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, it limits itself to expressing concern and verbal condemnation, but it takes completely different positions in the case of countries whose government policies are against the security, political and commercial trends of the West.
Sweden’s positions move independently or within the framework of the common European foreign policy, in coordination with the United States, in issuing a resolution in the UN Human Rights Council, appointing country’s special rapporteur, applying political and economic sanctions, expelling from the Human Rights Council, referring the case to the Security Council to issue a resolution to impose global sanctions and even an extended interpretation of military intervention in those countries.
This research, which is based on fact finding based on Swedish media, reports of international human rights organizations, the reports presented in the United Nations Human Rights Council in the Global Periodic Review of Human Rights (UPR) mechanism regarding Sweden and…, confirm the aforementioned approaches and also show that there are many cases of human rights violations in Sweden and the expansion of respect for human rights requires avoiding selective approaches, interaction and exchange of experience, understanding and respect for the cultural values of other countries, as well as avoiding absolutism and being uncriticized.
But regarding why Sweden handed over this disaffected Kurdish protester to Ankara, it should be said that the voting system of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is based on consensus, and it is unlike other international organizations whose voting system is based on relative or qualitative majority of votes.
That is, the Swedish government, like any other government applying for membership in NATO, needs the positive vote of each member of this alliance to accept its membership, and the negative vote of each member means that the applicant country is not accepted for membership.
The Swedish government needs Turkey’s positive vote to accept its membership. Therefore, in such a situation, Stockholm’s human rights values are sacrificed to the goals and political interests of the Swedish government.
